Sociograms

Your Name:

Tiffany B.

Name of Strategy:

Sociogram

Source (Where did this come from?):

This strategy was found on the Greece Central School District website. The site does not state who originated the technique.

Link to the Strategy:

http://www.greece.k12.ny.us/instruction/ela/6-12/Reading/Reading%20Strategies/sociograms.htm

Give a thorough description of the strategy and how it will be implemented. This should be a summary of the strategy according to the original source:

The sociogram is designed to get students thinking about the relationships among the characters of a story. This will enable students to better understand the conflict within the story. The sociogram will be used after most of the main characters of a novel have been introduced, Holes (or some other literary work). Students will be asked to draw a sociogram based on the following guidelines.

· Place the central character(s) at the center of the diagram

· Let the physical distance between characters reflect the perceived psychological distance between the characters

· Let the size/shape/symbol of a character metaphorically represent each personality, importance, one’s power or lack of, etc.

· Show the direction of a relationship by an arrow, line, and its nature by a brief label

· Represent substantiated relationships with a solid line and inferred relationships by a broken line.

· Circle active characters with a solid line: circle significantly absent characters with a broken line.

· Place the characters that support the main character on one side of a dividing line, and antagonistic characters on the other side.

· Illustrate the tone and or theme of a piece by the use of color or visual symbols.

· Explore creative ways to represent a character’s motivation.

Explain what part of the standard course of study is addressed by this activity.

This strategy will be applied to Grade 8.

1.02 Analyze expressive materials that are read, heard, and/or viewed by: monitoring comprehension for understanding of what is read, heard and/or viewed.

5.01 Increase fluency, comprehension, and insight through a meaningful and comprehensive literacy program by:

• using effective reading strategies to match type of text.

• reading self-selected literature and other materials of interest to the

individual.

• reading literature and other materials selected by the teacher.

Explain why you think this strategy will work. How does the strategy help your students learn?

This strategy will allow students to reflect back upon the novel and its characters. It will challenge them to understand the relationship between each individual. Furthermore, students are asked to express this knowledge graphically with a picture. Students who have a difficult time putting ideas into words may enjoy this activity. Boys also tend to have more difficulty than girls expressing themselves. This method allows them to express themselves with a picture.

Example sociograms for Hamlet

Example 2